


Disconnected

by quarterinthequeerjar



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hackers, Chicago (City), F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quarterinthequeerjar/pseuds/quarterinthequeerjar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla is one of Chicago's most talented hackers. After a simple hit-and-run assignment goes awry, she is forced to flee with Laura Hollis, who had previously been her target. With Laura by her side, she struggles to connect the dots to find the mysterious individuals who've lured them both into a technological game of cat and mouse. How long can they stay in the dark before they perish at the hands of Carmilla's past?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is a Watch Dogs AU, but it's not a crossover; none of the characters from the game will make an appearance. Frankly, I didn't like the game's story, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. There's nothing that can't be improved with lesbians! (Also, sorry in advance for any formatting errors and the like. This is my first time posting on AO3, so I don't know if it's gonna come out looking fucked up.

For Carmilla, it was just business.

The shitty, rust laden 2003 Ford Focus was tucked inconspicuously on the side of the Chicago street. Inside, the raven haired woman sighed heavily as her thumb played deftly across the surface of her iPhone. She swiped through a multitude of off-market apps and navigated through dark and complex networks. She double checked everything and then triple checked and quadruple checked. Everything was in place. She was ready. Had been for - she checked the time again - nearly fifteen minutes. All she needed was the go-ahead, and she could get this goddamn night over with.

She decided to turn on the radio and caught the tail end of some pop hit before it gave way to commercials. She didn't really care what she listened to; she'd be tuning it out anyway. She just needed background noise. The pounding in her skull was getting to be taxing on her nerves, which were already buzzing.

Suddenly, her phone displayed an incoming call from William Luce, her partner on this particular hit. When she picked up, she was bristling.

"What the hell?! Do you know how long you kept me waiting?!"

Will's reply came casually. "Fifteen minutes?"

His indifference only filled Carmilla's words with more venom. "Fifteen minutes! This was supposed to be in action ten minutes ago! You are treating this like it's a walk in the park!"

"Easy, Kitty. Burn up those brain cells with all your raging and you won't be able to complete your half of the assignment," he said, condescending as usual. "And if you're so worried about being on time, hurry up. I'm in position."

The call ended and Carmilla growled as she threw open the car door and stepped out. Will had always been a little shit; for the months they'd been working together, the younger hacker had seemingly made it his personal mission to see how far he could crawl under Carmilla's skin. Carmilla figured it was because he sucked up to their boss, a woman who loved to play favorites. Said favoritism gave him a ridiculous ego boost. It also meant he got off with the easy parts of the job while Carmilla was stuck doing all the dirty work. In the case of tonight's assignment, Will would be snug in his car in an alley across the street, playing I Spy while Carmilla went in and got blood on her hands. Honestly, she didn't even need him. She could peek through security cameras, too. And she could do it without having to sit in a cushy Mustang, all nice and safe from the line of fire. But of course she couldn't just cut Will out. She'd get an earful from their boss if she did. It was bullshit.

Still, a paycheck was a paycheck.

Carmilla locked her car and drew up the hood of her jacket. The goal here, as it was with every assignment, was to blend in with the crowd throughout the entire process. Carmilla stuffed her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, grasping one firmly around her phone, and kept her head reasonably low as she made her way down the sidewalk.

Her line of work was...interesting. When she peered up at the Chicago night life whirring past her, she didn't see places to shop at, food to taste, or people to meet. She saw an entire city aching for her command: traffic lights could be switched at her leisure, transformers and underground steam pipes could explode and kill anyone in the immediate vicinity, and all she needed to do was press a button on her phone. Really, she should thank CtOS one of these days; those corporate monkeys and their selfish, capitalistic need to turn Chicago into a hyper-connected "smart city" had given Carmilla the ability to use otherwise mundane objects to her advantage. So long as it contained a computer chip, it was at her beck and call.

Everything fell under one of two categories: a way out or a way in. Right now, Carmilla was looking to get in. Tonight's assignment would take place at a night club called "dot conneXion". According to the dirt she'd dug up after having been assigned the hit by her boss, an individual she knew only by the alias "Mother", the place actually used to be wildly popular. But after some rumors about possible ties to hacker groups and a scandal involving the sudden disappearance of the club's head DJ, it had taken a dive into just plain sketchy.

Not that Carmilla really cared about the public image of this place. Of all the pathetic vermin in the joint, the only rat she cared about was a young woman named Laura Hollis. She was her target for the night.

As Carmilla neared dot conneXion, its huge, flashy sign an unmissable blemish even in downtown Chicago, she felt her phone buzz again in her hand.

"All right, Kitty, I see that you're close," Will said, undoubtedly following Carmilla through street cameras. "I scoped the outside already and the place seems like it'll be pretty easy to get into."

Carmilla sighed, a long, exasperated breath that was a telltale sign of someone who didn't particularly love their job as much as they loved the money. "The place is absolute trash. I wasn't expecting to have to pull anything flirty with the bouncers to get in. I can just unlock a side door or something for this one. Its security will be shit. It'll take two seconds."

"Wow, don't sound so excited," Will said with a chuckle. Carmilla didn't even entertain it as she slinked around to the building's side. At the silence, Will continued, "Okay, if you go around back, there's a scissor lift for construction on the neighboring building. Get to the roof and find a door and you're golden."

Carmilla went around to the back of the building, and sure enough, there was the scissor lift Will had mentioned. She pulled herself up and over the railing before flicking her thumb across an access button on her phone, and the lift kicked into life.

"Damn, this thing is slow," she said as the machine raised her ever so sluggishly to the club's rooftop.

Once the lift finally came to a halt, she vaulted herself over the railing and onto the roof.

"So what's the deal with this Laura girl, anyway?" she asked as she began searching for a door.

"What?"

For fuck's sake. "The target, you imbecile."

"Oh," Will replied, obviously distracted. "I don't know. Don't really care, either. All I know is that Mother wants her dead. ...And that she's 5'2, light brown hair, brown eyes - she's kind of hot."

"Well, if you're into necrophilia, you're in luck." Carmilla jogged up a flight of stairs and found a door on a higher level of the building's rooftop. "Guess it doesn't really matter. I was just curious."

Will snorted. "Well, you know what they say about curiosity, Kitty."

"I hope you're not insinuating that I don't know how to do my job," Carmilla bit back.

"Of course not. Now unlock that door."

Carmilla scoffed. Typical Will. Always thinking he's in charge.

She studied the door for a second. Standard keycard lock system. She held her phone up to a small box to the door's left, entered a few brief commands, and bingo! The door's lock clicked.

"I'm inside," she announced as she pulled the phone back to her ear.

"All right," Will said, "get it done and get it done good."

Carmilla rolled her eyes. "Sure thing."

Leave it to Will to act like the boss when he was doing the bare minimum. Bastard wasn't even attempting to hack in.

Hanging up the call and pulling up the necessary arsenal of apps, Carmilla pushed past the door and found herself at the top of a flight of stairs. She descended down into the building, the pulsing beat of the club's dance music vibrating more and more distinctly through her as she made her way closer to the main floor.

It wasn't long before the stairwell opened out into a large balcony that overlooked the entirety of the main dance floor. Around her in this somewhat secluded area, small groups of friends chatted over beers, and couples had lodged themselves into corners where they thought no one would mind their tonsil hockey. Carmilla nearly gagged at one gloriously disgusting display of affection and continued forward to the edge of the balcony where she could easily scan for the target.

The dance floor itself wasn't too crowded. Eddies of people moved with each other here and there, bodies grinding hungrily against one another. Others stumbled drunkenly in what looked more like a cry for help than it did any sort of dancing. Carmilla shook her head. Part of her wished she could have been alive centuries ago, back when waltzing was all the rage. Still, 2015 wasn't entirely bad; she admitted she adored the technological advances humanity had made.

She pulled up two apps on her phone. One let her access and control any camera in the area. The other, a little gem called "Remote Profiler," was one of her favorites. With the Remote Profiler app, she could look at anyone and gather all sorts of information about them, be it mundane or juicy. The app tapped into a multitude of databases and social media accounts to bring Carmilla all the info she could want or need about a person. She could glance at someone and know their full name, age, occupation, income, any of their recent purchases, even where they went on vacation three years ago. It was a total invasion of privacy, and she owed her thanks for this little magic trick to CtOS.

Carmilla leaned against the balcony's wall, appearing casual as she glanced up from under her hood at the far wall. Opposite her, there was a camera mounted just above the entrance. It scanned steadily left and right. With a few strokes - identifying the camera in her list of available feeds and then authorizing an automatic bypass of its security- she was in. Really, this place was too easy.

Scanning with a bird's eye view through the camera's feed, Carmilla used the Remote Profiler to search for her target. She held at her fingertips more information about the human trash in this club than she cared to know. She moved systematically, profiling every girl who fit the description Will had given her. "Rogers, Nora. 26. TV/movie extra. Arrested for DUI." No. "Doyle, Maya. 25. High school teacher. Runs blog about S&M." Nope. "McAllister, Stephanie. 22. Grocery bagger. Trolls online political threads." Yikes.

Carmilla steered the camera to view a different side of the floor. It panned over, and she zoomed in on the bar area.

"Hollis, Laura. 24. Newspaper columnist. Volunteers at animal shelters."

Will was right. She was a cutie. Curvy ankle-biter with doe eyes. Her hair, a light shade of brown, fell in waves across her shoulders. She certainly didn't fit in with all of the other people in the club. Under other circumstances, Carmilla might take her home. But business was business, and Carmilla was eager to get out of this dump.

She pocketed her phone. She wouldn't need it for this kill. She'd take the girl out back, promise her something - drugs, sex. Everybody could be bribed. Clean shot to the head with her silenced pistol, and that was her money earned.

She headed down to the main floor and sat at the bar at the end opposite Laura. The tiny woman was seated next to a tall redhead who appeared to be her girlfriend. The two were chatting about something or other, and something the ginger giant said made Laura burst into a fit of adorable giggles. Carmilla almost felt bad about having to kill this one. Almost.

Just as she stood up from her spot at the bar, she found herself cornered by a tall, beefy dude in an entire outfit dictated by Nike, from the stupid snapback all the way down to the sandals - and socks. Carmilla was already groaning internally. Not now.

"Hey," he greeted. He said it like a command. "You come here often?"

Carmilla suppressed an eye roll. Was he really trying that line? "Nope. Never been here before."

"Oh, well that's cool. It's fun here, you know," he pressed on, his eyes obviously not on Carmilla's.

She turned back around to face the bar, but the hopelessly stupid guy plopped down right next to her, angling himself toward her so that he took up a ridiculous amount of room on the counter. She had to crane her neck to see Laura at the end of the bar behind him.

"You got a name?"

Carmilla tried not to grit her teeth as she whipped out the first name that came to mind. "Natasha."

"That's a pretty name," he said, leaning further into Carmilla's bubble.

Carmilla couldn't deal with this meathead's half-assed attempts at flirting right now. She stood up and started to walk away from the bar completely, but the dumbass actually had the gall to reach out and grab her wrist.

"Watch it!" she snapped, ripping herself from his grasp.

"Easy, I'm just trying to start up a conversation."

Carmilla knew how the minds of guys like this one worked. Sad as it was, if she wanted him to get the hint and leave without conspicuous conflict, she'd need another man's intervention. She pulled out her phone and went to text Will for some backup. In doing so, she accidentally brushed her Cams app, reopening it.

When she peered down at the screen, something unusual wrested her interest.

"What are you doing?" asked the guy who was still trying to get in her pants.

Carmilla was too busy working through what she was seeing to answer him. The Cams app was telling her that a nearby camera was in use, but she'd closed out of the one camera she used after she'd located Laura.

She looked around for any cameras that might have been accessed due to some sort of glitch. The nearest one was the hidden security camera behind the bar, the one used to prevent people from stealing liquor. Carmilla tried to access it, only to be denied. "BAR-CAM 01 in use," read the error message.

She looked up at the camera and furrowed her brow. "What the...?"

The next half a second was filled with a bright flash and a loud bang and the feeling of being whacked in the side by a searing aluminum bat before Carmilla blacked out.

When Carmilla came to, the first thing she was aware of was the incessant pounding in her head and the ringing in her ears. Not to mention the red, hot pain in her right side.

She remembered the very recent events and forced herself to try and sit up. She managed, but just barely. Pain tore at her abdomen and made her cry out and curse in protest. She was lucky it had only been a small explosion; anything larger and she would have been dead or disabled.

She took in her surroundings. The blaring club music had stopped. Panicked conversations from the clusters of people around her permeated her skull and worsened her already profound headache. Around her were all sorts of debris; shards of countertop and drywall and puddles of glass and spilled alcohol decorated the floor. Her phone, of course, was toast, its screen shattered completely and the rest of the body merely two halves connected by a single wire. When she turned her head to look at the bar - or what was left of it - she saw that half of the counter had been decimated, and waterfalls of whiskey and rum were trickling down to the tile from broken bottles. The entire right side of the bar was charcoal black, singed from the heat of the explosion. Around the blast zone were bodies, all unconscious, some of them breathing.

Among those bodies whose chests were still heaving was a small girl with honey colored hair. Laura.

Carmilla growled at the taste of her own blood. Someone had just tried to kill her, and they had failed miserably. Right away, one name played across the background of her thoughts like ticker tape: William.

Of course it had been him. Why hadn't she sensed something was wrong before? The fact that he'd been fifteen minutes late, his extra shifty attitude, his eagerness to break off communication with Carmilla after helping her get inside, the incredible ease with which she was able to access everything in the building's security. She felt like kicking herself. She had been set up.

Carmilla pushed herself to her feet, wincing as her injured side urged her to reconsider. But she powered through it. She was livid. She wanted answers. She wanted revenge.

She willed herself to breathe evenly and shuffled in the direction of the building's rooftop exit, scooping up the remnants of her phone and stuffing them into her pockets - just in case. She needed to get the hell out of there before Chicago PD reared their ugly faces.

She braced herself on the railing of the first of many staircases she would have to endeavor but stopped short when another thought occurred to her.

Why had Laura Hollis been her bait? Why had the petite woman, of all people, been selected to assist in the completion of Carmilla's murder? What did she know? What answers could Carmilla pull from this seemingly innocent girl?

The bloody, dark haired woman spun around and made her way over to stand over Laura's senseless form. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted slightly, her breath coming in ragged waves.

Carmilla gathered every fleeting bit of strength she could muster and pulled the girl into her arms.

"Holy shit, there's no way I'm doing this," she grunted as the added weight of another human threatened to make her collapse.

But she did it anyway. Somehow - most likely with the help of adrenaline - Carmilla carried Laura from the building, her side singing out hymns of torturous pain every step of the way. Tears spilled from her eyes and blurred her vision, and she blinked to chase them away. If there was one thing Carmilla swore she'd do, it would be to make Will feel what she was feeling at that moment.

When she finally made it up to the balcony, Carmilla was relieved to find a door she'd missed before. Hoping it would lead to a way out, she set Laura down while she opened it - thankfully, it was unlocked - and then continued on down a narrow hallway with Laura in her arms once again. 

The hallway lead to a room with one fairly sizable window. Figuring beggars can't be choosers, Carmilla hoisted herself and Laura out of the building and into the alley.

Cool, night air greeted Carmilla's wound, and she hissed in response. Already she felt the heat from the club radiating off of her skin. She was grateful for the refreshing trade.

Apparently Laura was reacting to the sudden drop in temperature as well; she was murmuring softly to herself and shifting slightly in Carmilla's grasp. Carmilla set her down, helping her sit up against the side of the building as she collapsed next to her, panting and unzipping her hoodie. She knew they didn't have long before they'd have to get moving again.

Laura's once vacant expression bunched up into one of confusion and discomfort. Her eyes shut tighter, and her breathing quickened into a series of coughs and gasps. That explosion had really knocked the wind out of her.

Carmilla sighed in relief before pulling her gun from its place beneath her hoodie.

Laura's eyes blinked open. "Wha...? Where...?"

"Relax," Carmilla breathed as she switched the pistol's safety off.

In the distance, police sirens blared and whined. Laura finally looked over at Carmilla.

"There...w-was an explosion," she managed, her voice trembling, "and Danny... We... And now y-you..."

Carmilla pressed the gun to Laura's back, and Laura let out a horrified yelp.

"Stand up."

Laura did, and Carmilla stood with her, hiding her gun expertly with her jacket.

"How well can you walk?"

The girl could barely speak through the half formed sobs collecting in her throat.

Carmilla huffed in annoyance. "Listen to me, Hollis," she hissed, "I don't know what you were doing at this club tonight, but someone just tried to kill me, and I have reason to believe you had some part in it."

Laura shook her head furiously. "N-no! I... I'm..."

A hard press of the pistol into her back shut her up.

"We're not discussing this here. I'll take you back to my place. And I don't want you to make any attempt to escape. Do you understand that?"

Laura nodded.

"If I so much as suspect that you are trying to break free, I won't hesitate to pull this trigger. Now move. We have to get the hell away from here."

Carmilla didn't expect she'd actually have to shoot Laura. The gun was for worst case scenarios. If the police spotted the two of them, or worse, if some sneaky minion of Will's was waiting for her just around the corner, she needed to be ready. She didn't have her phone anymore. Her pistol was her best method of defense at this point. She only kept it on Laura's back as a means of concealment. Not to mention, it made the girl move a hell of a lot faster.

This cooperation quelled Carmilla's anger when she glanced across the street and saw that Will's Mustang had "mysteriously" disappeared.

They weaved through back alleys and side streets, keeping their heads low as more and more police cruisers filed down the main streets to dot conneXion. Carmilla knew explosions were taken seriously, but she was surprised that they were making such a big deal out of it, and she considered herself lucky that she got out when she did.

It suddenly occurred to her that, at this rate, they might very well release a search party to hound for possible suspects. Also, seeing as she didn't have car keys, she would need her phone to start cars, including the Ford she'd abandoned earlier. This all meant fleeing by car was out of the question; she had to get off the streets.

"Fuck everything," she muttered, forcing Laura to make a sharp turn at the intersection of two alleyways.

On the sidewalk at the end of the alley was a set of stairs leading up to an L-Train station.

"Do you have a transit card?"

Laura worked to dislodge the lump in her throat. "Yes. In my left pocket. I-"

Carmilla stuffed her free hand into Laura's pocket and produced said pass. She shoved it into Laura's hands, but they shook and struggled to keep a firm hold on the small piece of plastic. This was not going to work if she kept up the jitteriness. With all of their injuries from the explosion, they already weren't your standard pair of people boarding the L, and if someone paid too much attention, they were bound to notice something was up.

"Ease up, cupcake," Carmilla said. She did her best to make her voice sound soothing, but it only worked so well when the other girl thought she could be shot at any second. "We're going to board the train, and we're going to go to my place. I need you to pay for our fare."

Carmilla shifted so that it looked like she was placing her hand affectionately on Laura's back. At first, she'd been skeptical about the idea, doubting anyone would buy it. But after moving out onto the sidewalk and climbing the stairs to the platform, she noticed that nobody had given them any strange looks, even with the both of them displaying a gallery of cuts and burns. It made her feel a tiny bit better about her situation. She guided them to a seat at the back of the car. With Laura sitting so close to her, they blended effectively as a couple.

Carmilla let her shoulders sink a little as the train lurched into movement. She had made it this far. Now all she needed was to make it to her hideout in the Loop.

Once they had reached her stop, she made her way off the train and back onto the street, guiding Laura just a few blocks down to her "house."

Even in Chicago's thriving business district, there were some places that were, put simply, left to rot. Carmilla had made camp in the basement of an old apartment building. She'd spared no expense in decking the place with a myriad of advanced security systems and technical gizmos and had still managed to make it look damn near invisible to the wandering eye. Once she'd managed to get Laura through the hidden entrance - conveniently located in an alley - she finally removed her pistol from the woman's back.

She heard frantic shuffling before she turned on the room's single lamp, and when she turned around to confront the light haired girl, she found she had backed herself into a corner and armed herself with a measly screwdriver. While she did admit she admired the fighting spirit in the brunette's eyes, the sight of the 5'2 girl in a non-threatening stance in the corner of her home did make her question the legitimacy of her earlier accusation.

But still, she had to know for sure.

"You can hold the screwdriver if you want to, cupcake, but I'm not going to hurt you," Carmilla announced. To prove her point, she switched her pistol's safety back on - Laura jumped at the action - and set the weapon down on her work bench.

Carmilla exhaled deeply and fought the urge to bite her lip, preparing herself to question a girl she basically already knew was innocent. "Why were you at that club?"

Laura's knuckles where white around the screwdriver. "I swear, I didn't know any of that was going to happen. Now if you could just...fucking let me go, that would be amazing. Please."

"Ugh, fuck," Carmilla groaned. "So you were just there with your friend. ...Your girlfriend."

Laura gulped. "Th-that's right. ...And she'll do everything she can to make sure I'm found, so you'd better back down!"

Carmilla ran a hand through her hair and sat down in the rolling chair in front of her work bench, facing Laura. As she sat, the stabbing feeling in her side returned in full, and she winced and clutched at the wound.

This situation was all too familiar to her. The thought that had been nagging at the back of her mind from the moment she woke up after the explosion ate its way to the forefront. For some reason, this girl had been forcibly involved in matters beyond her control. And somehow - who knows how - those matters were tied to Will's botched attempt at killing Carmilla. Whether or not Mother was working with Will was one question. How Carmilla would go about solving the puzzle was something else entirely.

The hacker turned slightly and rummaged through a heap of devices on her work bench, plucking a brand-new iPhone from the mess; she always had a handful of spares at the ready. She plugged it into a nearby laptop and powered it up. When she read the message that popped up on the screen, her heart felt like it had dropped to her stomach. She had been right.

Carmilla detected movement out of the corner of her eye. Laura had relaxed enough to sit down on the end of the couch along the room's far wall, hugging her knees to her chest. Carmilla swallowed a lump in her throat as she took in the girl's small form, her eyes trailing along all of the cuts and bruises she could see along her face and arms, her hands which played nervously with the screwdriver, the vulnerable look on her tired face.

"I know I have a lot to explain," Carmilla said dryly. "And I know you're scared right now."

Laura made a small, exasperated sound.

"...But I can't let you leave."

Laura's mouth fell open, but Carmilla cut off her impending protest, "I can't let you leave, because someone is after you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so long! I ramble. Get at me on Tumblr: geeky-gay-introvert.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to post. I was toying with a few different plot lines, but I think I've finally landed on one that I like. Not to mention, I'm a perfectionist and eventually I just had to stop and post what I had, even if I thought it needed more tweaking. Enjoy.

"What do you mean someone's after me? Who would be after me?"

"Can't say for sure," Carmilla answered. She turned to face her laptop. She had to troubleshoot her security systems and make sure there weren't any cracks Will could slip through. "My partner... My ex-partner. He just sent me a little message. Not to mention he's the one who rigged that explosion at dot conneXion."

Carmilla scanned through multiple displays on her laptop and was relieved to find that there hadn't been any breaches in her devices' security. She was still hidden, although she didn't doubt Will had attempted to track her. Only an idiot wouldn't have. She would have to do the same to him.

"Your ex-partner?"

"William. He was my partner on a lot of the jobs I did," Carmilla explained. She was already picking away at Will's recent text, trying fruitlessly for any sort of trace.

"Jobs," Laura repeated.

Carmilla huffed and spun back around. Of course she wasn't expecting Will to leave any doors open, but the immediate bar in progress did frustrate her.

"Ever heard of hackers-for-hire?" she began. She was going to have to give it to Laura straight. "Some shifty ne'er-do-well needs something: data, access codes, blackmail material. Sometimes they need their tracks covered. Sometimes they need someone dead."

Laura just stared, absorbing Carmilla's words, so Carmilla continued, "So they beg and plead at the knees of someone who, for the right price, will oh-so-kindly lend them a hand. Their cry for help gets directed through the middle-man to hackers like me. I do what I'm told, and then I get paid a cut of the bribe money."

"...You hack computers and kill people for money?"

Carmilla sneered. "It's a living."

Laura furrowed her brow, working through what she'd just been told. "So you were at that club because you were hired to go there... What exactly was this job, then?"

Carmilla fixed her gaze on a large scratch in the cement floor. She'd never thought she'd actually have to experience the awkwardness that was telling someone you were hired to murder them. "I was supposed to kill you."

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then, "You what?!"

"You're not dead," Carmilla pointed out with a shrug.

"I'm not exactly in perfect health, either!" Laura shouted. "I have bruises all over my body! And who knows what kind of damage that explosion did to my skull and/or brain?!"

Carmilla couldn't help thinking this was the most she'd heard out of the small woman all night. Out of all the people she'd ever held hostage, she'd never come across anyone with as much untamed spunk as Laura Hollis. There was something about her that made Carmilla want to let her keep ranting.

"First you tried to kill me! You tried to kill some random girl at a club, because you thought you'd get paid! And then you couldn't even do that right!"

Carmilla raised an eyebrow. A target telling her off for not killing her. That was certainly a first. This girl had guts.

"Yeah?" Carmilla urged her. This little comment made the girl's face bunch up in an expression of anger that almost made Carmilla laugh out loud, despite everything.

"Yeah!" Laura was fuming by now. "And then you had the nerve to hold me at gunpoint and kidnap me and take me here, and now you're telling me someone else wants me dead? Well, I don't think that's- Agh!"

Laura had made an attempt to stand up from her curled position on the couch, but her injuries made her change her mind. She grimaced and sank back down into the cushions.

"Whoa there, sugar lump," Carmilla said, just about jumping up from her own seat. "I know you're angry, but take it easy."

Laura sat incredibly still for a moment before she allowed herself to breathe again, and she looked just past Carmilla.

"Let me see that," she said, pointing to the work bench. "Let me see the message your partner sent you."

Carmilla turned and grabbed her phone from the counter before wheeling herself over to hand it to Laura, who took it after a moment's hesitation, cradling it with her fingertips as if it were a ticking bomb. She stared down at the screen.

"'Go ahead. Take Mother's target and run. I'll gladly kill two birds with one stone. Keep your head low, Kitty.'?" Laura passed the phone back to Carmilla. "...Is 'Mother' the one who wants me dead?"

Carmilla held the phone in her lap. "No. She's my boss. Whoever it is who paid Mother - that's who wants you dead."

Suddenly, Laura released a shaky breath that indicated she was on the verge of tears. The light haired girl's voice sounded quiet and frightened, and the stark contrast between this and her previous rant didn't go unnoticed by Carmilla.

"I don't even know who this person is," Laura said. Her words slipped past her lips like they were coated in molasses, and Carmilla thought it had been years since she last heard anyone speak with such weighted worry. "I don't even have a clue who it could be. Why would someone want to kill me?"

"I don't know," was all Carmilla could offer her. "Hopefully I can find that out within the next couple of days."

"Days?" Laura asked, her eyes widening.

"I'll be honest, it's not going to be entirely easy," Carmilla said. "If this person is working through Mother and Will, then my guess is that they've got their ass covered. ...I'll do my best, but I need you here. For...cooperation."

"You need my help?"

Carmilla swallowed. "I need your assistance, yes. If this person is after you, it means they've got ties to you. I believe you when you say you don't have a clue about what happened at dot conneXion, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to investigate. If anything surfaces in your memory that might be useful, I need to know."

Laura frowned. "Why can't I brainstorm from the comfort of my apartment?"

"Look, cupcake," Carmilla began, shaking her head, "it's not that I don't trust you, but I don't trust you. Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't run off and tell anyone. Your friends. The cops. I'm not an idiot."

Laura made a face somewhere between a pout and a scowl. She said nothing, and Carmilla assumed she understood. Really, were it even remotely possible to release Laura without repercussions, Carmilla would have gotten rid of her in a heartbeat. But she just couldn't take that risk.

"Sorry, cutie. Nothing personal."

Carmilla turned to face her computer again, already eager to begin her search for any information that might help her, but a yawn from a wordless Laura interrupted her.

"Tired?"

She replied with a question. "So I'm really stuck here for a while?"

Carmilla sighed. "You can take my bed. It's just in the other room. I probably won't be getting any sleep tonight, anyway."

She glanced over the smaller woman's battered state again and stood up, offering up her left side to be used as a crutch.

Laura shook her head. "But aren't you hurt...?"

"Oh, please. I've had worse. Besides, I did just get both of our asses all the way across Chicago. What's a walk into the other room?"

Carmilla guided Laura into her room, which was just a few feet away. The building's basement wasn't very large: just three storage rooms and a laundry/bathroom area. The hacker had sought the help of someone she trusted when she made the place her own; it took more than one set of hands to make the basement's storm door entrance disguised-yet-accessible, and it certainly wouldn't have been easy to restore the place to living condition all by herself.

After Carmilla had gotten her to her room, she helped Laura into her bed, a cushy full with satin sheets. She really had spared no expense. And why should she, when her job had paid her so handsomely? She lived in an old basement, hidden from the world, but the place didn't have to look dingy.

"There are more pillows in the closet if you need them. Get some shut-eye, buttercup," she called over her shoulder as she turned to leave.

As she was passing through the doorway, Laura's defiant tone stopped her.

"All right, you can stop with the pet names," the girl told her. "My name is Laura."

She'd halted with a slight turn, leaning against the doorframe. "...Okay."

"Okay," Laura echoed, obviously fishing for some sort of apologetic response. When she didn't get one, she continued, "And what's your name? Or do you insist on playing this whole mysterious card the entire time we're stuck together?"

For a brief moment, the hacker actually considered walking away without another word, or in the very least, lying about her name. Then, "It's Carmilla. Just go to sleep, sweetheart."

Carmilla returned to her work bench. She probably shouldn't have told Laura her name. Then again, she probably shouldn't have brought the girl back to her hideout. And she probably shouldn't have been so blind to the obvious trap she'd walked into. She should have known better.

She made herself as comfortable as possible in her chair and rolled up in front of her laptop. Damn it all if tonight hadn't been a cocktail of poor choices, and she had to get cracking on righting those wrongs immediately, lest she fall victim to the waiting claws of Mother, Will, and whoever else was out there looking for her. And Laura.

Laura. What a painfully difficult case she'd turned out to be. The girl, while admirably determined, possessed quite a few traits Carmilla typically found annoying in a person: a foolishly caring disposition even in the face of danger, a reluctance to listen to reason. And the way she had been so adamant to argue with Carmilla in a burst of rambling was something else entirely.

Carmilla rubbed her temples, vexed by just how fixed her thoughts were on the tiny, vigorous woman. She needed to focus on everything that had just happened with Will.

She knew that he had tried to kill her. She knew that he would attempt to kill her again, and she knew that he would try for Laura, too. What she didn't know was why an energetic animal shelter volunteer was such an important target, or how involved Mother was in the scheme to get rid of her.

Carmilla would have to play her cards carefully. If Mother was reinforcing Will - and she could assume she was - that meant the slightest mistake could result in her head on a platter, or worse, behind bars. She had already taken the necessary steps to make herself damn near untraceable, but she wouldn't be safe forever. She had to take them both out as soon as she could. She would try mining for clues the usual way, running searches on names she knew, spending hours in front of a computer, sifting through mountains of meaningless information. But in the end she knew that Laura's memory was her most valuable resource. She kept this in mind as she thought of the girl dozing off in the other room, and it wasn't long before her own eyelids adopted a coercing heaviness.

At some point in the night, Carmilla must have migrated from her chair to the couch, because when she woke up to the sound of her 7:00 alarm, the first thing she noticed was the scratchy material of the throw pillow beneath her cheek. She knew that gaudy design had been a bad idea when Perry suggested it.

Carmilla rubbed her side, which was now pestering her with a dull ache. She should call Perry. The woman may be uptight, but she'd successfully patched Carmilla up more times than she could remember.

The dark haired hacker willed herself to sit up. She stretched, relishing the popping and creaking of her exhausted limbs. She grabbed her phone and dialed Perry's number, and the older woman answered on the third ring.

"Hello? Carmilla?" Perry sounded like she'd just barely woken up.

"Hey. I need you to come over." Then again, Carmilla did too. "And would you mind bringing LaF?"

"Why, what happened?"

-

When Perry and LaFontaine arrived, Laura was still asleep. The knackered girl slept right through LaF's loud entrance through the basement door, as well as Perry's frantic questioning.

"Are you hurt? Where are you hurt? Is it a cut, a burn, a break? Have you been drinking water? My god, Carmilla, sit down."

Perry rushed to sit with Carmilla on the couch, producing an arsenal of first-aid supplies. As she busied herself - with a slight tsk of disapproval at the sight of Carmilla's side - LaF planted themself in the computer chair, hunching over the work bench and attending to Carmilla's laptop.

"It's all right, I already checked my security," Carmilla told them.

The other hacker shook their head. "I'm double-checking. You know me."

"Have at it," Carmilla said, sighing as Perry applied ice to her wound.

LaF and Perry were more than Carmilla could have ever asked for when it came to quirky sidekicks, not that she considered herself a hero. The two redheads were an outcast duo. LaFontaine used to be a high school teacher - biology, chemistry, physics. They knew a fair amount about hacking and code, as well. Not to mention, they had the tools and know-how to concoct all sorts of nasty, little gadgets, such as grenades. Perry was LaF's girlfriend. Carmilla didn't know much about the curly haired woman, only that she used to work in a hospital. Carmilla actually didn't know much about either of the redheads, but that didn't bother her. Mutual respect allowed the three to work together without having to raise any questions; they kept their noses out of her tragic backstory, and she, theirs. This relationship worked out beautifully. They helped each other out of ruts, no strings attached.

"So who's this girl you plucked from dot conneXion?" LaF inquired, not breaking their laser focus on Carmilla's laptop.

"Laura Hollis. Little pastry of a girl. Mother's after her for some reason, and I'm keeping her here while I solve everything."

"And how long's that gonna take?"

"No clue," Carmilla admitted with a shrug. "I told her it would take a few days."

LaF gave a blunt snicker. "And she believed that?"

"Yeah, she believed it. She thought it was a lot, actually. I figured it would have calmed her down; she was ridiculously riled up," Carmilla said, peeling back her shirt more as Perry poked and prodded with different materials. "She's basically an overzealous bunny. I'm amazed she fell asleep at all."

Perry's head snapped up, and she met Carmilla with a foul gaze. "So this girl - is she hurt, too?"

Carmilla blinked. "I mean, she isn't exactly one hundred percent. After the explosion, she-"

Perry flew from the room, bringing her supplies along with her.

"Classic Perr," LaF remarked. They turned from Carmilla's work bench. "Everything checks out. You're good for now."

"For now," Carmilla noted. "I need to be prepared."

"True. ...I gotta' say, you seem pretty stressed about all this. You never gave me the impression that Will was that much of a threat."

Carmilla examined the bandages and gels adorning her side. Perry worked fast. "He's not," she said. "I'm more worried about Mother giving him orders. Lord knows she'll weaponize him. And I still don't know who's after Laura-"

As if on cue, a startled cry sounded from the other room, followed by a loud, "Don't you even try and kill me! ...Carmilla!"

The woman in question growled. "Relax! Her name is Perry, and she's here to fix you up!"

LaF chuckled as Carmilla wore an annoyed expression. "'Overzealous bunny,' huh?"

There was a beat of silence, and Perry could be heard fussing over Laura's wounds and telling the girl to hold still.

LaF continued, "Have you seen the news clip yet?" Carmilla shook her head. "Saw it this morning. I noticed that the CtOS' facial recognition still sees your face as, well, unrecognizable."

Carmilla smirked. "Just preserving my air of mystery."

Carmilla had made sure that all cameras in Chicago would play back her face as nothing more than a pixelated blur. Just another magic trick to keep up her anonymity as a hacker.

"If you want to call it that," LaF jabbed amiably. "And hey, if you're so worried about Mother finding you, I can help you stay hidden. You know you can always call on me if you need anything."

Carmilla gave them a small smile. "Thanks."

"Speaking of which," LaF began, rummaging around in their bag, "I have something that might help you out."

They produced a tiny card and handed it to Carmilla. It contained a name, a number, and nothing else.

"JP Armitage," Carmilla read aloud.

"Jeep's a buddy of mine," LaF said. "If you ever need a set of wheels, he's your man. Something fast, something sturdy, something inconspicuous - tell him what you need, and he'll get it to you within the hour. ...I don't know how mixed up things might get for you, but it's always good to have a way from A to B."

"Thanks," Carmilla said again as she ran her thumb across the smooth card stock. She really did owe LaF and Perry more than she could give. "I'll keep it in mind."

"Cool," LaF said as Carmilla set the card on an end table. "Why don't I pull up that news clip, by the way? It's the first step toward digging up clues."

"Sounds good."

As LaF moved back to the laptop, Perry returned with Laura in tow. The girl sported darkening bruises on her skin and bags under her eyes that still held all of the previous night's worry and exhaustion, but she appeared just a bit better now that she had had Perry's help and a night's sleep to fix her up. Carmilla moved over to make room on the couch as she sat down.

"Not so bad, was it?" she asked, earning a glare from the girl, who was pressing lightly against a Band-Aid on her elbow.

This look, however, was nothing compared to the scoff she got from Perry, who was moving around to her other side.

"I hope you know how much glass I had to pick out of her. I hope it concerns you," she bit. She began working angrily with her supplies, now inspecting other areas besides Carmilla's waist. The hacker held still. "I can't believe you actually let her go to sleep without checking her for serious injuries. She's lucky it was just a few tiny pieces, and you, well... You're lucky to even be alive!"

Perry's movements with her pair of tweezers were getting so forceful that Carmilla was grateful when LaF chimed in, "The video's ready."

LaF set the video to full screen. The clip opened with a few shots of dot conneXion's exterior, its entrance walled off with police tape. The interior was pitiful, with an ugly pockmark marking half the bar and debris scattered everywhere around the blast zone. Carmilla thought that, in better lighting, the whole scene seemed far less grandiose than she remembered; maybe it was the anger she'd felt when she woke up that made the moment so climactic in her mind's eye, painting everything red.

A newswoman prattled on about a "mysterious explosion," and Carmilla wasn't entirely concerned with the story's useless details until the mention of the explosion's source caught her attention.

"Security footage shows 25-year-old Justin Black placing the explosive - disguised as a package of alcohol - on a shelf behind the counter. He is one of two individuals whose lives were lost to the explosion; the other's name has yet to be released. It is currently unknown whether he was working alone or with another individual."

Carmilla nearly leapt from her seat. "Holy shit," she exclaimed, "that's the man who was hitting on me."

LaF turned their head. "That Justin guy?"

"Yeah, he was trying to corner me at the bar," she elaborated. "I'll bet anything Will had him roped into his little scheme."

"You think he was a fixer?"

Carmilla shrugged. "No idea, but a search on his name might give us something."

"On it," LaF said. They busied themself with their phone while the clip played.

The newswoman continued, "One Chicago woman was reported missing after having been at dot conneXion at the time of the explosion. Security footage shows 24-year-old Laura Hollis being carried from the building by an unidentified individual whose face is undetectable on all of the club's camera feeds, according to law enforcement. Officials suspect hacker groups may be involved, but further investigation is needed to deny or confirm..."

Carmilla's gaze swept over to the woman sitting next to her. Laura wasn't paying attention to the broadcast. Her eyes were settled vacantly on some invisible spot on the floor, and her features were pinched together in apparent worry. Carmilla thought maybe the girl had been unsettled by the sight of her own unconscious body being hauled away. Or maybe she was concocting some annoying rant that Carmilla would have to quell.

Carmilla sighed. "Laura-"

The light haired girl stood and departed to the other room. Carmilla followed her to where she had found a spot at the small table in the makeshift kitchen and was holding her head in her hands. She looked like she was either on the verge of tears or about to scream. Carmilla thought about pulling up a chair and sitting next to the girl but decided against it, instead standing isolated in the middle of the kitchen.

"Laura, I already told you that dangerous people are after you."

"They said two people were killed."

Carmilla shifted slightly. "What?"

"In the explosion," Laura continued. Carmilla could hear her voice waver. "They said two people died. One of them was that guy. What if Danny was the other one? How do I know that she's not...?"

"Whoa, whoa, cupcake, take a breath," Carmilla said. She hadn't even thought about the possibility of Laura's girlfriend being one of the stiffs she'd seen on the floor of the club. She pulled her phone from her pocket. "I can look her up right now. What's her name?"

Laura gulped audibly. "Danny Lawrence."

Carmilla plugged the name in and thumbed through a few links before finding Danny's Facebook profile.

"There. See?"

Carmilla showed the phone to Laura, who sat still with baited breath. When she leaned over and saw that the tall redhead had updated not even an hour ago, she emitted a tidal wave sigh of relief.

Carmilla withdrew the phone. "She's peachy keen."

"Not exactly, according to her status," Laura grumbled.

There was the sass Carmilla had received so much of the previous night. Little puppy still had some bark.

"Can I...see her profile?" Laura asked. "I just want to look through it."

Carmilla frowned. "I don't think that's such a good idea..."

"Oh, relax. What am I gonna do, call someone? You can even hold the phone for me. I'm sure you can find it within your kidnapping self to let me see how my girlfriend is doing, unless that's against your 'hackers' code.'"

Carmilla had to bite her tongue. This girl really knew how to push the buttons of the person who'd kidnapped her - really, she hadn't been entirely wrong in using that description - and test her limits.

However, Carmilla figured she should just nip any potential whining in the bud now before it got worse; she glanced back down at her phone before handing it to Laura. "I'll be standing right here," she reminded her.

Laura seemed taken aback that she'd been allowed such liberal access to the phone but was soon eager to scroll through Danny's profile. The redhead had, of course, posted several statuses about Laura, alternating between distraught and angry in nature. Every other sentence was peppered with, "I swear if I find out who took her..." and, "Nobody can take her and get away with it..." It all struck Carmilla as grotesquely overprotective, even given the situation. She actually stopped paying attention after a while, for fear she might gag.

"Oh, she shared Kirsch's picture of Theo..."

"Hm?" Carmilla stopped picking at a bandage and glanced back up at the phone.

"My friend Kirsch. His buddy Theo went missing a while back. I've only ever met the guy once, but from the way Kirsch talked about him, they were pretty good friends. It's sad. He just vanished," Laura explained.

Carmilla took a look at a picture of two guys standing side by side on a boat, likely on Lake Michigan. They were posing with a trout, and both had huge grins on their faces. Below the photo was a caption: "Miss you, bro."

But Carmilla wasn't concerned with the caption or any other part of the picture except the man next to Kirsch. She leaned over Laura's shoulder, and her eyes scanned over his face one more time before she stood bolt upright.

"'Vanished,' my ass," she spat. Laura's response was to stare in startled confusion, so Carmilla plucked the phone from her hands and brought it closer to her own face. As she peered into the eyes of the man next to Kirsch, she persisted, "I know this guy. And he certainly didn't go by Theo when I worked with him."

Laura craned her neck in an attempt to peek at the screen again. "You know Theo?"

"I know Martin Bender," she answered. There were no tags on the picture other than Kirsch's. Carmilla could only stare pointedly at the face she had seen once before, in a setting and situation of considerably less leisure than a fishing trip on the lake. "Worked with him once on an assignment. Spent three days with him."

"So Theo's not his real name?"

Laura rose to meet Carmilla, and the dark haired woman zoomed in on Theo's - or Martin's, or whomever's - side of the photo.

"Who knows?" Carmilla said. "But I've got this hunch that there are things far more sketchy about him than what he calls himself."

"And by that you mean...?"

Carmilla spared a second to tear her gaze from the phone and look up at Laura in disbelief. Wasn't this girl a journalist? She'd assumed her observational skills would have been more in tune.

"He's a hacker who's got ties to you. It's possible that he's the person who paid Mother to have you killed."

At this, Laura's lips quirked up into an amused and doubtful half smile. "But I only met him once..."

Carmilla took a couple steps from Laura, freeing herself into the space of the kitchen. She bit her lip. Maybe that was all she needed to go about drawing suspicions. As a woman who had to start pointing fingers at somebody, she wasn't about to sit around checking off a list of qualifications for everybody she accused.

Her buzzing thoughts were scattered when she heard another set of footsteps enter the kitchen.

"Hey, so I wrapped up the search," said LaF as they stepped in behind Laura. "He was a complete random hired by Will. He's not your guy."

"I know," Carmilla said as she slid her phone into their hands. "He is."

The red haired hacker peered down at the man in the zoomed-in picture. "And this is...?"

"An old coworker. And I think it's about time I paid a visit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lot of introduction/setup/establishing groundwork. I promise the next chapter will have plenty of action! Get at me on Tumblr: geeky-gay-introvert.tumblr.com


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